Infographic: The Ultimate Cell Phone Plan Picker

Choosing a cell phone just a handful of years ago was fairly easy: Find out which carrier in your area provided the most voice minutes for your phone and see which handset suited you. But now that smartphone adoption is on the rise, consumers have to consider a wider range of alternatives including available software applications, handset platforms, and the cost of a data connection.

To help guide you through some of these variables, such as consumer satisfaction, rate plans and dropped call data, Wilson Electronics, the folks that make cell phone signal boosters, created this chart of current plan options from the four largest cellular operators in the U.S. There’s always more to consider, especially now that handsets do so much more than they used to, but this infographic is a solid place to start.

I’m actually a Net10 prepaid plan user, but because Net10 has exclusive agreements in place for the use of the towers of the Verizon and AT&T and T-Mobile networks which combined give me really great reception in my area. Being a quite an outdoor adventurer in my spare time it’s always a comfort to know I get great coverage where ever I go in case I’m in a climbing accident or my car breaks down in a remote area and I can just phone for help.

What about pre-paid plans like Virgin and Straighttalk? You can get unlimited plans from them for about $45 a month. You just need to buy the phone upfront. We need to get to be more like Europe where you buy the phone and don’t get locked into a contract…

Today (01/11/2011) is the day millions of Big Red Smartphone buyers have been waiting for long long time. It’s finally here, the unlimited data iPhone on Verizon !!! WooooHooooo.
The only questions are will it be 4G enabled and will it be white ? I think it will be CDMA-only phone (no LTE) which is a real bummer. But because it is still consider the world’s best and most popular smartphone look for millions of Big Red customers to purchase the mighty iPhone soon. And this includes many who will finally get to dump their plastic Android phones and step up to the industrial-grade phone they’ve always wanted. Welcome aboard the Apple ecosystem everybody, we have been waiting for you :-)